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Intro to the Beatitudes

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The setup:

So I’m walking today, clearing my head before the next big thing I had to do. I was praying, telling God I wanted to know Him, wanted to have the Holy Spirit teach me ( John 14:26 )

So I start thinking about the Beatitudes. I grew up having to memorize the Bible at school, so ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’ is pretty drilled into my head. Some of the others are harder to remember, but the first few are usually right there.

So I got a big lightning bolt about the Beatitudes...

Right. What's a beatitude?

The Beatitudes are found in Matthew 5:1-12, at the top of the sermon on the mount. ( Beatitude means ‘blessedness’, meaning that this list of things is about how to be blessed. )

There are some in the Church that have noticed these verses are important – hey form sort of a contract about how a Kingdom mindset works. The Beatitudes can be seen as the basis of God’s value system.

The Beatitudes are a good thing to have in my back pocket. Since He’ll be judging my life and rewarding me ( or not ) according to HIS rules, it’s helpful that He laid those rules out where I could find them.

That's the kind of teaching I always hear about the Beatitudes - Jesus is telling you how to act, so you can be blessed.

What I learned today

As I was walking, the Holy Spirit taught me something. Up til now, the Beatitudes have always been about me…I’m poor in spirit, so I need Jesus to save me, I’ll be comforted when I mourn, sometimes I hunger and thirst after righteousness ( well, not really ), stuff like that. Always with the personal application.

But I got lit up last night by the Holy Spirit dropping a whole different perspective straight into me. It might have taken a minute total. Here's the big thing.

The Beatitudes aren't all about me. They're all about Jesus.

Some of you are yawning...'Yes Darren, everything is about Jesus'. No really. The Beatitudes are ALL about Jesus.

I've always been taught they are a progression of maturity in the faith

  1. Recognize your poverty of spirit
  2. Then mourn
  3. God produces meekness
  4. You get hunger and thirst for righteousness
  5. etc.
All that is secondary.

First it's about Jesus, second it's about me.

Chew on that...film at 11.

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